Comey team attacks charges

‘Preposterous’: Comey team attacks charges over alleged threat to Trump

FBI turned to convicted mafia killer to attempt to show ‘86-47’ could be a call for assassination.

By Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein

A May 2026 FBI interview with notorious mobster “Sammy the Bull.” A text message from a disgruntled acquaintance misled by a Rudy Giuliani podcast. An actress’ late-night television routine.

The strange tale that led to former FBI Director James Comey being prosecuted over a May 2025 photo of seashells arranged to read “86-47” grew stranger still Tuesday as his defense attorneys laid out what they contended were bizarre aspects of the federal investigation that resulted in him being indicted in April on charges of threatening to kill President Donald Trump in an Instagram post.

New details about the probe emerged in a fusillade of motions Comey filed late Tuesday to kill the criminal indictment, contending that it was rooted in Trump’s personal animus for the FBI chief he fired in 2017, and based on misleading evidence used to improperly obtain search warrants for Comey’s digital records.

Among the details, supplied by Comey’s lawyers: The White House’s intense interest in every aspect of the initial Secret Service probe, with senior officials asking for details even as Trump flew home from Europe. The filings also indicate that as Comey drove from North Carolina to northern Virginia shortly after the posting, law enforcement tracked the former FBI director via his cellphone.

Such “exigency” tracking, which takes place without a warrant, requires law enforcement to claim that there’s “an imminent threat to life or limb,” a Secret Service official wrote, according to Comey’s legal team.

The official, whose identity was redacted, added in a memo filed by the defense that when initially contacted by the Secret Service Comey declined to say where he was, although he said he would meet with investigators the following day in Washington. “We did not believe that anyone’s life was in immediate danger and legally it was a bad idea to ping the phone,” the official concluded.

Aspects of the Secret Service’s unusual tracking of Comey were first reported last year by The New York Times.

Appended to Comey’s latest motions were two search warrants the FBI used to obtain Comey’s information from Apple and Google. The first was approved by a magistrate judge on March 23, 2026, just days before Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi amid frustration about her failures to prosecute his political nemeses. The second was approved in May by a different magistrate judge.

The warrants show that the FBI’s case against Comey was largely based on a disputed interpretation of “86,” a term of ambiguous origin that has typically been used in the restaurant industry to represent an item that is out of stock. But some have interpreted it in a more sinister sense, defining it as old Mafia slang for murder. The bureau contended that Comey’s years prosecuting organized crime would have exposed him to that darker definition — and his decision to post the picture to Instagram represented a “true threat” to Trump’s life.

In their filing, Comey’s defense team called that explanation ludicrous and devoid of any evidence. Prosecutors went so far to prove Comey’s violent intent that they interviewed Salvatore Gravano, better known as “Sammy the Bull,” in May. Comey’s team said Gravano supported the notion that law enforcement officials would know the term “86” had a violent definition, but he added that mobsters wouldn’t use it because it would be too obvious.

Trump publicly called for Comey to be prosecuted last year, in a social media post directed at Bondi. Days later, his handpicked prosecutor Lindsey Halligan secured an indictment in the Eastern District of Virginia, charging Comey with false testimony to Congress in 2020. The case was thrown out two months later, after a federal judge concluded Halligan was illegally appointed. Comey had similarly argued that the first indictment was rooted in Trump’s personal animus, but the case collapsed before that motion was resolved.

In the seashell case, both search warrant affidavits included claims from a Comey associate who said they texted Comey’s wife Patrice Comey to express disapproval of the post and then contacted the Secret Service, alleging James Comey must have known of the more violent connotation of “86.” But that associate — who was labeled “Person 1” in the filings Tuesday — based their view in part on a May 20, 2025, Giuliani podcast in which Giuliani pointed to Comey’s long history prosecuting organized crime as proof he understood 86 meant “kill.” The FBI reinterviewed this associate in April 2026.

Comey’s lawyers say the unnamed associate is estranged from Comey and is simply wrong— there’s no evidence in any of Comey’s cases that he encountered someone using the term “86,” they say. And Gravano, who admitted involvement in more than a dozen murders, offered up no specifics to support the idea that Comey was aware of the term’s alleged violent meaning, Comey’s lawyers said.

Gravano also urged FBI agents to contact longtime prosecutor John Gleeson to corroborate the violent connotations of the expression. Comey’s team took the longtime mobster up on it, appending a six-page affidavit from Gleeson disclaiming any suggestion that the mob used the term “86” to refer to murder.

“The claim that ‘86’ is mafia jargon for ‘kill’ is preposterous,” wrote Gleeson, who became a federal judge after his stint as a prosecutor but returned to private practice in 2016. “If it weren’t made in the context of seeking to deprive a man of his liberty, it would be laughable.”

Underscoring the point, Gleeson provided a painstaking account of his work on organized crime cases — including “thousands of hours of debriefings and conversations” with members of the Mafia. Not once, he said, was the term “86” used as “mafia jargon” for murder.

The FBI affidavit seeking Comey’s Apple iCloud records noted that Comey made an appearance on “The Late Show” on May 20, 2025, to discuss the seashell flap. The agent then quoted a Slate interview by “Scandal” actress Darby Stanchfield, who described doing “pre-interviews” ahead of her own late-night TV appearances. Based on Stanchfield’s account, the agent wrote, Comey likely did his own pre-interviews about the seashells.

On Monday, Comey’s attorneys filed a separate motion with U.S. District Court Judge Louise Flanagan, arguing that she should throw out the case because Comey’s posting of the “86-47” image can’t be considered a “true threat” under Supreme Court precedent and allowing the prosecution to proceed would violate the former FBI chief’s First Amendment rights.

Flanagan, a George W. Bush appointee, has set an Oct. 21 trial date for Comey.